UK Pipe Band Championships to return to Northern Ireland on June 13th; full slate of RSPBA majors

The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association has informed member band secretaries that the 2026 UK Pipe Band Championships will be held on Saturday, June 13th, at Grove Playing Fields, Belfast, bringing the RSPBA back to a full complement of five major championships.

This year, the event was moved to Ingliston, on the west side of Edinburgh, the first time in a decade that the UK or any championships were not staged in Northern Ireland. Only four majors were held in 2025 after the association was unable to secure a sponsorship deal for the British Championships.

“This landmark event will bring together pipe bands from across the United Kingdom and beyond, celebrating the excellence, heritage and shared traditions of pipe band music,” RSPBA Chief Executive Colin Mulhern said in his message to secretaries. “Hosting the championships in Belfast reflects the city’s growing reputation as a welcoming, vibrant destination for major cultural and sporting events, and recognizes its strong and long-standing connections to Ulster-Scots and pipe band traditions.”

In addition to the UK Championships, the RSPBA has confirmed dates for its four other majors: the British Championships on May 30th at Ingliston; the European Championships on June 27th at Perth, Scotland; the Scottish Championships on July 25th in Dumbarton, Scotland; and the World Championships on August 14-15 in Glasgow.

Ingliston changes its name and moves five weeks earlier, and the competition at Perth is six weeks earlier than this year’s August 9th date.

Unlike previous UK Championships that were organized by the RSPBA’s Northern Ireland branch, the 2026 event is being coordinated by the Ulster-Scots Agency and the RSPBA head office in Glasgow, with “significant financial support from Belfast City Council as part of their ongoing commitment to recognizing and supporting Ulster-Scots in the city.”

The 20-acre Grove Playing Fields are on the north of Belfast near its international airport. The venue has been recognized as one of “the UK’s best open spaces.”

The announcement of the 2026 UK Championships returning to Northern Ireland was made exactly a year after the RSPBA’s 2025 announcement that the UK Championships would be held at Ingliston.

That decision was met with considerable consternation from Northern Irish members, who were dismayed both that they had lost the UK Championship and the date on which the British was to be held, a day of cultural celebration for many. Only three Grade 1 and 60 bands in total competed at the 2025 UK Championships.

Many Scottish members were not pleased that the 2025 UK Championships were held in July, traditionally a vacation month.

The association surveyed its members on whether to move the UK Championships to May 3rd, but ultimately decided to keep July 12th.

The UK Championships were started as a replacement for the Cowal Championships in Dunoon, Scotland, which did not renew its major championship agreement with the RSPBA in 2013. Until an event was formally established in 1947, Cowal had been the de facto World Pipe Band Championships since 1906.